Three years after she was rescued from bonded labour, Manjula, a 30-year-old vegetable vendor, may not be able to provide a secure roof and good food for her six children. But what she will bequeath to them is the absolute sense of freedom that she recently regained.
Locked inside a van with her children and about 25 other rescued bonded labourers, Manjula summoned all her inner strength to protect her children from danger. The employer, from whom the debts were taken, attacked the vehicle along with his supporters, trying to force them out.
Mother’s Day is being celebrated on May 14 around the world. Manjula’s story is about the struggle, courage, and love of a mother.
Belonging to the Vaddera community, traditionally involved in stone cutting, Manjula neither knows her last name nor has any information about the district she hails from.
“My parents were quarry workers. Being the elder daughter in the family, I was told that taking care of my younger siblings was my sole responsibility. When my siblings started managing on their own, I joined my parents and migrated from one place to another working in different quarries,” Manjula said.
Nothing much changed in her life after the marriage which happened at the age of 14. Her husband was her paternal cousin. Instead of marrying a stranger, with the risk that the man might turn out to be like her alcoholic father, she convinced herself thinking whatever happened must be for the better. She gave birth to her four daughters in the quarries. Following a failed family planning operation, she again bore two sons. With a family of six children, it became difficult to survive on quarry work.
That was when she and her husband took an advance from an influential community in Karnataka through a mediator and agreed to work for them to repay it.
“The advance was about Rs 10,000. We never thought twice as one of our close relatives had also taken money from the same person,” Manjula said.
For three years, day and night, Manjula and her husband worked to repay the loan. At the end of the week, they would get just Rs 500 to buy groceries and feed the children. Nevertheless, not even a single penny was adjusted against the loan. The loans remained unpaid even when they were rescued by the police on the complaint of a social worker in 2019.
The police arrested the son of the employer. When the police rescued survivors asking them to sit in a van, supporters of the quarry owner started stoning the vehicle. A few from the mob approached the vehicle threatening to set it on fire. The police saw the crowd getting out of control and quickly locked up the van in order to protect the labourers.
Frail from working day-in-and-day-out at the quarry, Manjula felt she would faint. The commotion happening outside made her tremble.
“My three children held on to me and started crying out of fear and I had to muster all my courage to provide the children with strength and confidence. I told them that I will protect them,” she recalls.
In 2020, Manjula and her husband received a Bonded Labour release certificate and moved to Mahbubnagar where the family has been temporarily allotted a piece of land on which they had built a mud house.
The first rehabilitation amount was Rs 20,000, which Manjula spent on setting up a vegetable outlet that somehow survived the Covid-19 pandemic. Like other members of the group, she had to avail loans to run it. Even though she and her husband did not make much, they made their children continue their education. The only hope she had was that their children would not suffer as much as she did.
Manjula’s struggle for livelihood continues even today.
“Manjula’s unwavering courage and determination to keep her children safe in the face of danger is truly inspiring. Her story is a testament to the indomitable spirit of a mother’s love and her struggle to survive after being rescued from bonded labour,” said Vasudev Rao, a social worker from Foundation of Sustainable Development, who was involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of Manjula and others.
(The article was originally published in the print edition of TNIE Hyderabad on May 14, 2023)
